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Live by Night: A Novel
Live by Night: A Novel
Live by Night: A Novel
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Live by Night: A Novel

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From New York Times bestselling author Dennis Lehane comes this epic, unflinching tale of the making and unmaking of a gangster in the Prohibition Era of the Roaring Twenties—now a Warner Bros. movie starring Ben Affleck, Elle Fanning, Zoe Saldana, and Sienna Miller.

Boston, 1926. The '20s are roaring. Liquor is flowing, bullets are flying, and one man sets out to make his mark on the world.

Prohibition has given rise to an endless network of underground distilleries, speakeasies, gangsters, and corrupt cops. Joe Coughlin, the youngest son of a prominent Boston police captain, has long since turned his back on his strict and proper upbringing. Now having graduated from a childhood of petty theft to a career in the pay of the city's most fearsome mobsters, Joe enjoys the spoils, thrills, and notoriety of being an outlaw.

But life on the dark side carries a heavy price. In a time when ruthless men of ambition, armed with cash, illegal booze, and guns, battle for control, no one—neither family nor friend, enemy nor lover—can be trusted. Beyond money and power, even the threat of prison, one fate seems most likely for men like Joe: an early death. But until that day, he and his friends are determined to live life to the hilt.

Joe embarks on a dizzying journey up the ladder of organized crime that takes him from the flash of Jazz Age Boston to the sensual shimmer of Tampa's Latin Quarter to the sizzling streets of Cuba. Live by Night is a riveting epic layered with a diverse cast of loyal friends and callous enemies, tough rumrunners and sultry femmes fatales, Bible-quoting evangelists and cruel Klansmen, all battling for survival and their piece of the American dream. At once a sweeping love story and a compelling saga of revenge, it is a spellbinding tour de force of betrayal and redemption, music and murder, that brings fully to life a bygone era when sin was cause for celebration and vice was a national virtue.

LanguageEnglish
PublisherHarperCollins
Release dateOct 2, 2012
ISBN9780062200297
Live by Night: A Novel
Author

Dennis Lehane

Dennis Lehane is the author of thirteen novels—including the New York Times bestsellers Live by Night; Moonlight Mile; Gone, Baby, Gone; Mystic River; Shutter Island; and The Given Day—as well as Coronado, a collection of short stories and a play. He grew up in Boston, MA and now lives in California with his family.

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Rating: 3.840085349680171 out of 5 stars
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  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    I think I referenced Ellroy in my review of the first in this series and this cements that connection. There's more heart here and while some of the leaps serve the narrative more than they serve logic, there are enough action set pieces to keep things moving.

    I will see the Ben Affleck movie but now that I know Joe and Emma are supposed to be 20 when they meet, it may be harder to take seriously.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    [Live By Night] by Dennis Lehane2.5 starsFrom The Book:unflinching tale of the making and unmaking of a gangster in the Prohibition Era of the Roaring Twenties—now a Warner Bros. movie starring Ben Affleck, Elle Fanning, Zoe Saldana, and Sienna Miller.Meticulously researched and artfully told, Live by Night is the riveting story of one man’s rise from Boston petty thief to the Gulf Coast’s most successful rum runner.My Thoughts:I almost hate to rate or review this book since I feel that I'm not being very fair to it or it's very talented author. I have to admit that I chose the book solely to help complete a challenge and not because I was in anyway interested in the content. I'm going to watch the movie in hopes that it will hold more interest for me. Anyone interested in this period of history will more than likely find the book entertaining but for me it was a struggle. Please know that it in no manner reflected on the author or his ability to write an interesting story. I have read others of his books and thoroughly enjoyed them
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    I did not realize there was an earlier novel in this series. This is a standalone book. Joseph Coughlin is working on the opposite side of the law than his father who is hoping to become the Police Commissioner in Boston. Joseph is involved in robbery which leads to cops dying. He is arrested and sentenced to prison where he meets Maso, head of a powerful crime family in Boston. After his release from prison he goes to Tampa where he heads Maso's family branch there. I enjoyed this story. The era of Prohibition, rum runners, and gangsters is portrayed very well here. Joe is not the strong arm. He works to get agreements from all parties involved. He gets involved with Cubans and gets them to work with him and cut out the others. He builds his own mob. I liked the characters. They were complex--not all good or all bad. I like how Joe backs up his people and how he stands up for what he believes as he gets higher in the organization.I will be reading more of this author
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Dennis LehaneLIVE BY NIGHTWilliam Morrow, 2012402 pagesCrime / FictionI first discovered Dennis Lehane when I stumbled upon a paperback copy of Mystic River. I knew then I loved this writer. And although I then read several more titles, for some odd reason I drifted away from his books. No blame placed on the author whatsoever!LIVE BY NIGHT has kind of a Departed, or Scarface feel to it. It was layered with an array of characters, three different settings, and constantly twisting plots! The story takes place during prohibition. And even those of us who are considered history-challenged know what happened when booze was outlawed?!? Speakeasies, moonshine, and gangsters sprang up everywhere!Despite being the son of a Boston police captain, Joe Coughlin, has become an outlaw. He starts out small-time with the Bartolos brothers, Dion and Paolo. Given bad information they decide to hold-up a card game. Little did they know it was Albert White's game. Albert White was bad news. One of the big bad names in Boston. Once Coughlin realizes the error, he also realizes it is too late to stop what is already in motion.When things get hot in town, and Coughlin knows it is best to back-off some, he commits to once last heist. A bank job. Only problem is, people are onto the game. Cops are tipped off. Nothing goes as planned. Coughlin does time in prison. Attempts are made on his life. He has a chance to turn things around, and takes it, placing himself in the hands of Albert White's enemy, Maso Pescatore.Tasked with running the operation in Florida, Coughlin begins a new life, improving on his old way of life. He turns the swampy mass of Tampa into a thriving rum-running business for Pescatore. His rise to the top creates a host of enemies. There is no sleep for the man on top when there is always someone scheming to knock you down, or take you out.Prohibition won't last forever, and as the end of a dry-reign is in sight, Coughlin clearly sees the writing on the wall. What is going to happen to his empire, to his family, to him?At the movies not long ago, they showed a trailer for an upcoming Ben Affleck film, LIVE BY NIGHT. I knew that was a more recent Lehane novel, and immediately picked myself up a copy. I had to read it. My interest in Lehane has been restored. I devoured the novel in a few nights. it was absolutely absorbing. (Be advised, LIVE BY NIGHT is actually Book 2 in Lehane's Coughlin series).Phillip TomassoAuthor of the Severed Empire Series, and The Vaccination Trilogy
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    This story follows outlaw turned gangster Joe Coughlin, the son of a Boston police captain. This is a taught tale that mostly takes place during proabition that kept me reading to see how it all ends for Joe.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    I love most of Dennis Lehane's novels but much prefer his modern policiers than those like this one set in Irish Boston of the 1920s and 30s. It's still very readable but a bit over the top violent and, at times, improbable in the way the anti-hero escapes certain death at several points. There's also the question of how much you can empathise with a hoodlum. Lehane tries to have his cake and eat it by making a distinction between a gangster and an outlaw.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Won a copy from Goodreads First Reads Giveaway.Really excited about this one. I've read a few other books by Dennis Lehane and loved them.Awesome book set in the late 1920s and early 1930s during prohibition and gangster times. Started off set in Boston and then relocated to Tampa. As a Tampa native it made the book even more interesting since I know of all the places mentioned in the book and could easily picture it in my mind. Especially Ybor City since not much has changed there. Dennis Lehane is a terrific author and I will most definitely be reading any other books he writes that I haven't already read!
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Lehane never fails to satisfy. Interesting characters and plot. Typical surprise ending from this awesome author. Highly recommend.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Not as good as the Given Day, but the story gained power as it went along. Characters also came into deeper focus.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Another excellent Lehane novel - fast paced - hard to put down - very violent and often very sad. No heroic figures just primary characters.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    Prohibition, speakeasies, bank robberies, gangsters, mobsters, jail time, murders....LIVE BY NIGHT has it all. You will follow Joe Coughlin through his life as a privileged child, a gangster, and a mob boss.Joe Coughlin is the son of Thomas Coughlin....the only problem is that Thomas is the Chief Deputy Superintendent of the Boston Police Department and his son is a criminal. Joe feels he and his buddies are invincible, but he finds out they are not. Joe has committed many robberies in his short life, but the last one did him in....he did jail time for this one. He could have prevented jail time and a beating, but he had to see his "girl" before he left town. He should have just left town....she did him in and caused him trouble until the end.This book is about the Roaring 20's and life on both sides of the law. It is fast paced and lets you into that time period along with the characters. You will see that you won't know if you are friend or enemy even if you are in with the gang you are a part of. It is true to life and gives insight into how crime works behind the scenes. It is not a pretty read...you will be part of many mob killings and brutal scenes. The beginning is interesting but the ending is somewhat slow and a bit tedious. It is not one of his better books...sometimes there is too much information, and the scenes seem to drag on. I really lost my interest about half way through the book, but kept reading because I know Mr. Lehane is an outstanding author and kept that in mind as I aimlessly kept turning the pages. To his credit he has creative titles for each chapter with content that lives up to the chapter's heading. He has expressive, descriptive writing as always that brings that particular event, feelings, or person alive, but it lacks connectivity. At times, I was completely lost. I do have to wonder what he was thinking when he wrote this book....I am disappointed.Going to rate it a 3/5.This book was given to me free of charge by the publisher with no compensation in return for an honest review.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Dennis Lehane is hands-down one of my very favorite writers. His books are sad and wise and filled with lasting images, some of which haunt my dreams. He is a writer of great depth and breadth and I read and re-read his books over again (although Mystic River is so painful to me that I cannot read it anymore).Mr. Lehane's most recent books, The Given Day and Live by Night, take him into the historical fiction genre, although both are tangentially related to crime. The Given Day is set in the late-nineteenth century and ends with the Boston Police Strike of 1919. Live by Night explores the life of Joe Coughlin, a minor character from the previous novel.Joe Coughlin was his cop father's least favorite child - ignored, neglected, and ultimately brutalized. His relationship with his father and his past lead him to rebellion. Joe Coughlin becomes a gangster and Live by Night tells his story. It is story filled with all the elements of a mobster novel, but rises above its genre in the way that all of Mr. Lehane's writing does. Through Coughlin's story we explore legacies of violence, what it means to be outside of the rule of law, how our choices color our ends. Well-written, as always, with great character exploration, Live by Night is another success for Mr. Lehane. As usual, I can't wait for the next one. You must read this book along with everything else Mr. Lehane's written - you're missing out if you don't.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Thoroughly enjoyed this, as I did MYSTIC RIVER and GONE, BABY, GONE. Lehane is a fine writer and this, is first foray into historical fiction, is terrific. I recently read J.R. Moehringer's SUTTON. Both are set in the 1920s and 30s (although SUTTON moves into the 1960s) and both are about gangsters. Moehringer's may be more 'literary', by which I mean it reads at times as both meta-fiction and political/social criticism, whereas Lehane's work is more of a straight story, however both books are terrific character studies, well-written, well-researched and utterly riveting. Read 'em both. You can't go wrong.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    I was a bit disapponted that this novel didn't have the scope of The Given Day. Joe, the youngest brother of the Coughlin clan, becomes a gangster during Prohibition. Very well written, but I wanted more.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Dennis Lehane's latest novel takes place during the prohibition era of the late 1920's and early 1930's. It is the story of one man, Joe Coughlin. The book starts out with a bang. Joe is on a boat in the middle of the ocean, his feet in a tub of hardening cement. The book then jumps and tells the story of Joe's life. He starts a life of crime as a teenager and progresses from there. When we meet him he is robbing a small club, and it is not a club he should have been robbing. Joe notices some people and realizes there has been a mistake. Luckily he is wearing a mask. This small part of this impressive book let's us know that Joe is not your average dumb criminal, he has some brains. Yes he has. Over the course of the book we watch Joe fall in love, go to jail, meet some gangsters, make some friends and live a life of crime. He makes many friendships that are all very intriguing and fascinating to watch develop. Many of the situations set up in this book make you feel as if you are there with Joe. You are terrified for him even though he shows little emotion. We know he is scared, he says it throughout the book. Through all of this you like Joe and want him to make smart decisions. You want him to escape and live happily ever after. I'm not going to tell you what happens. The book is too good and needs to be read and savored.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Dennis Lehane follows up his blockbuster historical novel, The Given Day, with Live by Night, which is a narrative of Joseph Coughlin's life of crime from 1926-1935. Joseph, as you may recall, is Boston Police Department Deputy Superintentent Thomas Coughlin's son in The Given Day. Joseph, a small time hood, is involved in a bank heist, in which three policemen get killed in the ensuing car chase. While Joseph escapes, he is later recognized and captured (and beaten to a pulp) by policemen, following Thomas' orders.While in prison, he meets and impresses mob boss Maso Pescatore. When Joseph is released, Maso sends him to Tampa to revive an ailing illegal bootlegging business, which he does quite nicely.But it's not the story that makes Live by Night worth reading, for the story is uncompelling, at least to this reader. It is the characters and their limits. Joseph would rather be deemed a gangster than an outlaw, the distinction being one commits murder and one doesn't. The Tampa police chief, Irv Figgis, is OK with illegal rum running as long as it's on the outskirts of town. Thomas Coughlin, after living a life of graft, is faced with becoming a lackey of Maso in order to protect his son in prison. What are his limits? Local businessmen, pillars of the community, hidden underneath white cloaks, commit outrageous acts of violence. The bigotry in a region inhabited by whites, Cubans, Spanish and Blacks is blatant. The treatment of women is appalling, especially women of color. Many will try to counter these inhumane acts with acts of humanity. Does one offset the other? It is Lehane's description of people and the times that make Live by Night another must read.It is a father's love for a child (Thomas and Joseph, Irv and his daughter Loretta, Jospeh and his son Tomas) and the extent and nature of that love that makes Live by Night worth reading. Some of us grew up with undemonstrative or even mean parents, especially fathers, yet knew how much we were loved. Some may know what happens to a parent when a child is hooked on drugs. Some may know the sheer joy in a father's eye upon the mere sight of his child. Lehane explores this as well.If you're in the mood for a good story, Live by Night will entertain you. If you are in the mood to understand what makes people tick, Live by Night will give you material to think about.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    While not as ambitious as "Any Given Day" this an excellent read. Lehane strips things down and tells the tale of the youngest Coughlin. Using Tampa in the 30's as a back drop he tells s fascinating tale of the mobs and prohibition. Pace was on this one is like being in a run away car. Truth is, I would to hear more of Joe Coughlins adventures.
  • Rating: 2 out of 5 stars
    2/5
    The Given Day was an extraordinary book. Based on its strengths, I preordered Live by Night and I regret it. It is kind of a sequel. Unfortunately, gangsters and prohibition hold much less interest for me than the social and political unrest in Boston in the 1910s. It didn't help that I found most of the characters rather flat. I almost stopped reading 100 pages from the end.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    I have long been a fan of Dennis Lehane, and Live by Night reminds me of all the reasons why. The characters here are unforgettable. The plot unfolds in the chaotic times of prohibition, pervasive prejudice, and mafia ruling the cities. In the midst of this madness, Joe Coughlin is trying to find his way. His character touched me deeply, a rare accomplishment in fiction. Live by Night is Dennis Lehane at his best, and I loved everything about this book.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    "Live by Night' is an incendiary story spanning the rise in power of Joe Coughlin who is about to turn twenty as the story begins.Prior to the start of the actual story, there is a scene where Joe is in the hands of his enemies. It is clear that this might be his last moments and we wonder how he came to this predicament and if he will be able to survive. The rest of the novel tells of events that led up to this.Those who have read Dennis Lehane know how memorable his characters can be. Just consider the grieving father, Jimmy Markum and his nervous childhood friend, Dave Boyle, from "Mystic River."Here again, Lehane returns to Boston to create Joe Coughlin, a strong, resolute character who is the son of Thomas, the deputy supervisor of the Boston Police Department.We pick up the story in 1926. Mobs ruled the city and Joe is the youngest member of the Tim Hickey crew. Most of the time mobsters have a cruel streak and don't think anything of taking another person's life. Joe is anachronism in that he cares for his friends and those around him.After spending time at the Charlestown Prison and being there when Sacco and Vanzetti are executed, Joe makes his way to Tampa. His goal is to destroy a man who robbed him of his first love.I was impressed to watch Joe's rise to power and the manner in which he demonstrated his strength and leadership ability. There was something inside him that made others want to follow him.The prose is descriptive and vivid. Joe is a character who will take his place as one of Lehane's characters who live on in our memory and Lehane strengthens his reputation as one of our best story-tellers.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Live by Night is the story of Joe Coughlin, Prohibition-era gangster who sees himself as an outlaw, as an essentially good man who lives by the rules of the night rather than those of the day. He faithful, loving and forgiving. He'd rather broker agreements with his competitors than kill them. But he's also a gangster - a wildly successful gangster - which sometimes requires him to be ruthless and base. Joe may be soft, but he's not a coward.Over the course of a decade we follow Joe as he progresses from small time crook to Consigliere, struggles with family relationships and women, builds his empire and reigns with generosity, and tests his belief in God and karma. It's a nuanced story of a complex man - one who struggles to do the right thing in a lawless profession.In Live by Night, Dennis Lehane brings Boston, Tampa, Cuba, the Great Depression, and the American immigrant experience to life through this fast-paced and engrossing story.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    "Joseph" to his police chief father, Joe Coughlin has been a renegade in the Coughlin family since childhood. As he gets older it gets worse and he considers himself an outlaw; everyone else thinks of him as a gangster. He does have good parts especially after he is "married" to Graciela whose husband lives in Cuba.The setting is in Tampa, Florida in the 1920s through the 1930s. Prohibition is in full swing with the gangsters including Joe selling bootleg liquor in speakeasies. Lots of action, love, betrayal. It was a good read by author Dennis Lehane who I really enjoy reading.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    If Dennis Lehane gets any better at his craft, we will know he is supernatural.

    This follow-up to The Given Day, which I also reviewed in my list here somewhere, is even more powerful than its forebear. It could well serve as a stand-alone, but why cheat yourself?

    Stunning. Absolutely stunning.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    LIVE BY NIGHT by Dennis Lehane is a suspense/thriller story that I enjoyed. As a suspense/thriller fan, it was fun to read a story quite different from most stories I’ve read. I feel the writing is good and the characters are well defined. This book would appeal to mystery readers as well as those who enjoy suspense. Book clubs could find many areas to discuss from gangsters and their morality to knowing how to love the right person. I would not call it a Young Adult story even though the protagonist is in his late teens. It can make you smile occasionally, but is basically a serious story with serious questions. Who will get killed? Who will not get killed? Who is trustworthy, if anyone? I appreciate the chance to read this book.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    again, the effects of violence on individuals and families.
  • Rating: 2 out of 5 stars
    2/5
    Okay for what it was but not really my thing. With so much cartoonish sex and violence, it should have been 200 pages shorter and not as moralizing. It made me miss Jim Thompson or Gary Indiana. For an award winning genre exercise, no one else in my book club finished it either, except for one member whose father was an Irish mafia member.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    Dennis Lehane has been a dependably great mystery/thriller/suspense writer for many years. But readers who pick up LIVE BY NIGHT with the expectation of more of the same may be disappointed. While this book is Lehane’s usual exceptionably good writing, mystery/thriller/suspense it is not. This is historical fiction.Yes, it won the Edgar Award in 2013, which may lead you to believe that I am wrong. Go ahead, read it, and you’ll see.LIVE BY NIGHT is sort of a continuation of Lehane’s previous book, THE GIVEN DAY, his first deviation from mystery/thriller/suspense. I say “sort of” because LIVE BY NIGHT concentrates on one of THE GIVEN DAY’s lesser characters, Joseph, the little brother in THE GIVEN DAY all grown up and a gangster in LIVE BY NIGHT. But our hero is a gangster with a conscience.This is about the days of gangsters and prohibition and speakeasies (“speaks”) and easy murders. Lehane writes this genre just as well as he did mystery/thriller/suspense. But LIVE BY NIGHT is historical fiction and not what bestowers of the Edgar Award imply.I won this book from BV Lawson at bvlawson.com.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    Because of the settings of author Dennis Lehane's other books, I anticipated that this story about prohibition era gangsters would center around Boston. The story did start there but then quickly moved south when the main character, Joe Coughlin, is sent to Tampa, Florida to take over the liquor business there.
    Most of the other books I have read about prohibition era gangsters took place in cities, so it was really interesting to see how the usual gangster problems intermixed with issues of race, such as dealing with the KKK, and with the vibrant population of Cuban nationalists.
    I really enjoyed following Joe Coughlin's story to see how his morals were shaped by the positions he found himself in and how these morals were shaped by the philanthropic leanings of a woman he meets named Graciela and how these morals clashed with the stricter religious leanings of Tampa's police chief.
    I would highly recommend this book to anyone who is interested in historical fiction of the prohibition era as well as anyone who is interested in considering how you arrive a definition of right and wrong.
    As a side note, I read this in the summer, but as a native of upstate New York, I can imagine that if I had read Lehane's descriptions of the pre-air conditioning humidity in Tampa during a long, cold winter, this book would have been even more appreciated.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    I really enjoyed this book. It is somewhat of a continuation of Dennis Lehane's earlier work: The Given Day. This time the youngest son of the Couglin clan is featured. He is an educated outlaw with a good heart but an irrestable urge toward the unlawful. The story moves along a fast pace and the reader is instantly drawn into the action. This is a hightly readable book where the action moves from Boston to Tampa to Cuba.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    Good Lehane. The story of a gangster with a heart -- not a heart of gold, but more to him than dollar signs. The book also offers a nice glimpse of the Gulf Coast of Florida in the twenties and thirties.

Book preview

Live by Night - Dennis Lehane

PART I

Boston

1926–1929

Chapter One

A Twelve O’Clock Fella in a Nine O’Clock Town

Some years later, on a tugboat in the Gulf of Mexico, Joe Coughlin’s feet were placed in a tub of cement. Twelve gunmen stood waiting until they got far enough out to sea to throw him overboard, while Joe listened to the engine chug and watched the water churn white at the stern. And it occurred to him that almost everything of note that had ever happened in his life—good or bad—had been set in motion the morning he first crossed paths with Emma Gould.

They met shortly after dawn in 1926, when Joe and the Bartolo brothers robbed the gaming room at the back of an Albert White speakeasy in South Boston. Before they entered it, Joe and the Bartolos had no idea the speakeasy belonged to Albert White. If they had, they would have beat a retreat in three separate directions to make the trail all the harder to follow.

They came down the back stairs smoothly enough. They passed through the empty bar area without incident. The bar and casino took up the rear of a furniture warehouse along the waterfront that Joe’s boss, Tim Hickey, had assured him was owned by some harmless Greeks recently arrived from Maryland. But when they walked into the back room, they found a poker game in full swing, the five players drinking amber Canadian from heavy crystal glasses, a gray carpet of cigarette smoke hanging overhead. A pile of money rose from the center of the table.

Not one of the men looked Greek. Or harmless. They had hung their suit jackets over the backs of their chairs, which left the guns on their hips exposed. When Joe, Dion, and Paolo walked in with pistols extended, none of the men went for the guns, but Joe could tell a couple were thinking about it.

A woman had been serving drinks to the table. She put the tray aside, lifted her cigarette out of an ashtray and took a drag, looked about to yawn with three guns pointed at her. Like she might ask to see something more impressive for an encore.

Joe and the Bartolos wore hats pulled down over their eyes, and black handkerchiefs covered the lower halves of their faces. Which was a good thing because if anyone in this crowd recognized them, they’d have about half a day left to live.

A walk in the park, Tim Hickey had said. Hit them at dawn when the only people left in the place would be a couple of mokes in the counting room.

As opposed to five gun thugs playing poker.

One of the players said, You know whose place this is?

Joe didn’t recognize the guy, but he knew the guy next to him—Brenny Loomis, ex-boxer and a member of the Albert White Mob, Tim Hickey’s biggest rival in the bootlegging business. Lately, Albert was rumored to be stockpiling Thompson machine guns for an impending war. The word was out—choose a side or choose a headstone.

Joe said, Everyone does as they’re told, no one gets so much as a scratch.

The guy beside Loomis ran his mouth again. I asked you know whose game this was, you fucking dunce.

Dion Bartolo hit him in the mouth with his pistol. Hit him hard enough to knock him out of his chair and draw some blood. Got everyone else thinking how much better it was to be the one who wasn’t getting pistol-whipped than the one who was.

Joe said, Everyone but the girl, get on your knees. Put your hands behind your head and lace the fingers.

Brenny Loomis locked eyes with Joe. I’ll call your mother when this is over, boy. Suggest a nice dark suit for your coffin.

Loomis, a former club boxer at Mechanics Hall and sparring partner for Mean Mo Mullins, was said to have a punch like a bag of cue balls. He killed people for Albert White. Not for a living, exclusively, but rumor was he wanted Albert to know, should it ever become a full-time position, he had seniority.

Joe had never experienced fear like he did looking into Loomis’s tiny brown eyes, but he gestured at the floor with his gun nonetheless, quite surprised that his hand didn’t shake. Brendan Loomis laced his hands behind his head and got on his knees. Once he did, the others did the same.

Joe said to the girl, Come over here, miss. We won’t harm you.

She stubbed out her cigarette and looked at him like she was thinking about lighting another, maybe freshening her drink. She crossed to him, a girl near his own age, maybe twenty or so, with winter eyes and skin so pale he could almost see through it to the blood and tissue underneath.

He watched her come as the Bartolo brothers relieved the cardplayers of their weapons. The pistols made heavy thumps as they tossed them onto a nearby blackjack table, but the girl didn’t even flinch. In her eyes, firelights danced behind the gray.

She stepped up to his gun and said, And what will the gentleman be having with his robbery this morning?

Joe handed her one of the two canvas sacks he’d carried in. The money on the table, please.

Coming right up, sir.

As she crossed back to the table, he pulled one pair of handcuffs from the other sack, then tossed the sack to Paolo. Paolo bent by the first cardplayer and handcuffed his wrists at the small of his back, then moved on to the next.

The girl swept the pot off the center of the table—Joe noting not just bills but watches and jewelry in there too—then gathered up everyone’s stakes. Paolo finished cuffing the men on the floor and went to work gagging them.

Joe scanned the room—the roulette wheel behind him, the craps table against the wall under the stairs. He counted three blackjack tables and one baccarat table. Six slot machines took up the rear wall. A low table with a dozen phones on top constituted the wire service, a board behind it listing the horses from last night’s twelfth race at Readville. The only other door besides the one they’d come through was chalk-marked with a T for toilet, which made sense, because people had to piss when they drank.

Except that when Joe had come through the bar, he’d seen two bathrooms, which would certainly suffice. And this bathroom had a padlock on it.

He looked over at Brenny Loomis, lying on the floor with a gag in his mouth but watching the wheels turn in Joe’s head. Joe watched the wheels in Loomis’s head do their own turning. And he knew what he’d known the moment he saw that padlock—the bathroom wasn’t a bathroom.

It was the counting room.

Albert White’s counting room.

Judging by the business Hickey casinos had done the past two days—the first chilly weekend of October—Joe suspected a small fortune sat behind that door.

Albert White’s small fortune.

The girl came back to him with the bag of poker swag. Your dessert, sir, she said and handed him the bag. He couldn’t get over how level her gaze was. She didn’t just stare at him, she stared through him. He was certain she could see his face behind the handkerchief and the low hat. Some morning he’d pass her walking to get cigarettes, hear her yell, That’s him! He wouldn’t even have time to close his eyes before the bullets hit him.

He took the sack and dangled the set of cuffs from his finger. Turn around.

Yes, sir. Right away, sir. She turned her back to him and crossed her arms behind her. Her knuckles pressed against the small of her back, the fingertips dangling over her ass, Joe realizing the last thing he should be doing was concentrating on anyone’s ass, period.

He snapped the first cuff around her wrist. I’ll be gentle.

Don’t put yourself out on my account. She looked back over her shoulder at him. Just try not to leave marks.

Jesus.

What’s your name?

Emma Gould, she said. What’s yours?

Wanted.

By all the girls or just the law?

He couldn’t keep up with her and cover the room at the same time, so he turned her to him and pulled the gag out of his pocket. The gags were men’s socks that Paolo Bartolo had stolen from the Woolworth’s where he worked.

You’re going to put a sock in my mouth.

Yes.

A sock. In my mouth.

Never been used before, Joe said. I promise.

She cocked one eyebrow. It was the same tarnished-brass color as her hair and soft and shiny as ermine.

I wouldn’t lie to you, Joe said and felt, in that moment, as if he were telling the truth.

That’s usually what liars say. She opened her mouth like a child resigned to a spoonful of medicine, and he thought of saying something else to her but couldn’t think of what. He thought of asking her something, just so he could hear her voice again.

Her eyes pulsed a bit when he pushed the sock into her mouth and then she tried to spit it out—they usually did—shaking her head as she saw the twine in his hand, but he was ready for her. He drew it tight across her mouth and back along the sides of her face. As he tied it off at the back of her head, she looked at him as if, until this point, the whole transaction had been perfectly honorable—a kick, even—but now he’d gone and sullied it.

It’s half silk, he said.

Another arch of her eyebrow.

The sock, he said. Go join your friends.

She knelt by Brendan Loomis, who’d never taken his eyes off Joe, not once the whole time.

Joe looked at the door to the counting room, looked at the padlock on the door. He let Loomis follow his gaze and then he looked Loomis in the eyes. Loomis’s eyes went dull as he waited to see what the next move would be.

Joe held his gaze and said, Let’s go, boys. We’re done.

Loomis blinked once, slowly, and Joe decided to take that as a peace offering—or the possibility of one—and got the hell out of there.

When they left, they drove along the waterfront. The sky was a hard blue streaked with hard yellow. The gulls rose and fell, cawing. The bucket of a ship crane swung in hard over the wharf road, then swung back with a scream as Paolo drove over its shadow. Longshoremen, stevedores, and teamsters stood at their pilings, smoking in the bright cold. A group of them threw rocks at the gulls.

Joe rolled down his window, took the cold air on his face, against his eyes. It smelled like salt, fish blood, and gasoline.

Dion Bartolo looked back at him from the front seat. You asked the doll her name?

Joe said, Making conversation.

You cuff her hands like you’re putting a pin on her, asking her to the dance?

Joe leaned his head out the open window for a minute, sucked the dirty air in as deep as he could. Paolo drove off the docks and up toward Broadway, the Nash Roadster doing thirty miles an hour easy.

I seen her before, Paolo said.

Joe pulled his head back in the car. Where?

I don’t know. But I did. I know it. He bounced the Nash onto Broadway and they all bounced with it. You should write her a poem maybe.

Write her a fucking poem, Joe said. Why don’t you slow down and stop driving like we did something?

Dion turned toward Joe, placed his arm on the seat back. He actually wrote a poem to a girl once, my brother.

No kidding?

Paolo met his eyes in the rearview mirror and gave him a solemn nod.

What happened?

Nothing, Dion said. She couldn’t read.

They headed south toward Dorchester and got stuck in traffic by a horse that dropped dead just outside Andrew Square. Traffic had to be routed around it and its overturned ice cart. Shards of ice glistened in the cobblestone cracks like metal shavings, and the iceman stood beside the carcass, kicking the horse in the ribs. Joe thought about her the whole way. Her hands had been dry and soft. They were very small and pink at the base of the palms. The veins in her wrist were violet. She had a black freckle on the back of her right ear but not on her left.

The Bartolo brothers lived on Dorchester Avenue above a butcher and a cobbler. The butcher and the cobbler had married sisters and hated each other only slightly less than they hated their wives. This didn’t stop them, however, from running a speakeasy in their shared basement. Nightly, people came from the other sixteen parishes of Dorchester, as well as from parishes as far away as the North Shore, to drink the best liquor south of Montreal and hear a Negro songstress named Delilah Deluth sing about heartbreak in a place whose unofficial name was The Shoelace, which infuriated the butcher so much he’d gone bald over it. The Bartolo brothers were in The Shoelace almost every night, which was fine, but going so far as to reside above the place seemed idiotic to Joe. It would only take one legitimate raid by honest cops or T-Men, however unlikely that might be, and it would be nothing for them to kick in Dion and Paolo’s door and discover money, guns, and jewelry that two wops who worked in a grocery store and a department store, respectively, could never account for.

True, the jewelry usually went right back out the door to Hymie Drago, the fence they’d been using since they were fifteen, but the money usually went no further than a gaming table in the back of The Shoelace, or into their mattresses.

Joe leaned against the icebox and watched Paolo put his and his brother’s split there that morning, just pulling back the sweat-yellowed sheet to reveal one of a series of slits they’d cut into the side, Dion handing the stacks of bills to Paolo and Paolo shoving them in like he was stuffing a holiday bird.

At twenty-three, Paolo was the oldest of them. Dion, younger by two years, seemed older, however, maybe because he was smarter or maybe because he was meaner. Joe, who would turn twenty next month, was the youngest of them but had been acknowledged as the brains of the operation since they’d joined forces to knock over newsstands when Joe was thirteen.

Paolo rose from the floor. I know where I seen her. He slapped the dust off his knees.

Joe came off the icebox. Where?

But he’s not sweet on her, Dion said.

Where? Joe repeated.

Paolo pointed at the floor. Downstairs.

In The Shoelace?

Paolo nodded. She come in with Albert.

Albert who?

Albert, the King of Montenegro, Dion said. Albert Who Do You Think?

Unfortunately, there was only one Albert in Boston who could be referred to without a last name. Albert White, the guy they’d just robbed.

Albert was a former hero of the Philippine Moro Wars and a former policeman, who’d lost his job, like Joe’s own brother, after the strike in ’19. Currently he was the owner of White Garage and Automotive Glass Repair (formerly Halloran’s Tire and Automotive), White’s Downtown Café (formerly Halloran’s Lunch Counter), and White’s Freight and Transcontinental Shipping (formerly Halloran’s Trucking). Rumored to have personally rubbed out Bitsy Halloran. Bitsy got himself shot eleven times in an oak phone booth inside a Rexall Drugstore in Egleston Square. So many shots fired at such close range, they set the booth on fire. It was rumored Albert had bought the charred remains of the phone booth, restored it, and kept it in the study of the home he owned on Ashmont Hill, made all his calls from it.

So she’s Albert’s girl. It deflated Joe to think of her as just another gangster’s moll. He’d already had visions of them racing across the country in a stolen car, unencumbered by a past or a future, chasing a red sky and a setting sun all the way to Mexico.

I seen them together three times, Paolo said.

So now it’s three times.

Paolo looked down at his fingers for confirmation. Yeah.

What’s she doing fetching drinks at his poker games then?

What else she going to do? Dion said. Retire?

No, but . . .

Albert’s married, Dion said. Who’s to say how long a party gal lasts on his arm?

She strike you as a party gal?

Dion slowly thumbed the cap off a bottle of Canadian gin, his flat eyes on Joe. She didn’t strike me as anything but a gal bagged up our money. I couldn’t even tell you what color her hair was. I couldn’t—

Dark blond. Almost light brown, but not quite.

She’s Albert’s girl. Dion poured them all a drink.

So she is, Joe said.

Bad enough we just knocked over the man’s joint. Don’t go getting any ideas about taking anything else from him. All right?

Joe didn’t say anything.

All right? Dion repeated.

All right. Joe reached for his drink. Fine.

She didn’t come into The Shoelace for the next three nights. Joe was sure of it—he’d been there, open to close, every night.

Albert came in, wearing one of his signature pinstripe off-white suits. Like he was in Lisbon or something. He wore them with brown fedoras that matched his brown shoes which matched the brown pinstripes. When the snow came, he wore brown suits with off-white pinstripes, an off-white hat, and white-and-brown spats. When February rolled around, he went in for dark brown suits and dark brown shoes with a black hat, but Joe imagined, for the most part, he’d be easy to gun down at night. Shoot him in an alley from twenty yards away with a cheap pistol. You wouldn’t even need a streetlamp to see that white turn red.

Albert, Albert, Joe thought as Albert glided past his bar stool in The Shoelace on the third night, I could kill you if I knew the first thing about killing.

Problem was, Albert didn’t go into alleys much, and when he did he had four bodyguards with him. And even if you did get through them and you did kill him—and Joe, no killer, wondered why the fuck he found himself thinking about killing Albert White in the first place—all you’d manage to do would be to derail a business empire for Albert White’s partners, who included the police, the Italians, the Jew mobs in Mattapan, and several legitimate businessmen, including bankers and investors with interests in Cuban and Florida sugarcane. Derailing business like that in a city this small would be like feeding zoo animals with fresh cuts on your hand.

Albert looked at him once. Looked at him in such a way that Joe thought, He knows, he knows. He knows I robbed him. Knows I want his girl. He knows.

But Albert said, Got a light?

Joe struck a match off the bar and lit Albert White’s cigarette.

When Albert blew out the match, he blew smoke into Joe’s face. He said, Thanks, kid, and walked away, the man’s flesh as white as his suit, the man’s lips as red as the blood that flowed in and out of his heart.

The fourth day after the robbery, Joe played a hunch and went back to the furniture warehouse. He almost missed her; apparently the secretaries ended their shift the same time as the laborers, and the secretaries ran small while the forklift operators and stevedores cast wider shadows. The men came out with their longshoremen’s hooks hanging from the shoulders of their dirty jackets, talking loud and swarming the young women, whistling and telling jokes only they laughed at. The women must have been used to it, though, because they managed to move their own circle out of the larger one, and some of the men stayed behind, and others straggled, and a few more broke off to head toward the worst-kept secret on the docks—a houseboat that had been serving alcohol since the first sun to rise on Boston under Prohibition.

The pack of women stayed tight and moved smoothly up the dock. Joe only saw her because another girl with the same color hair stopped to adjust her heel and Emma’s face took her place in the crowd.

Joe left the spot where he’d been standing, near the loading dock of the Gillette Company, and fell into step about fifty yards behind the group. He told himself she was Albert White’s girl. Told himself he was out of his mind and he needed to stop this now. Not only should he not be following Albert White’s girl along the waterfront of South Boston, he shouldn’t even be in the state until he learned for sure whether or not anyone could finger him for the poker game robbery. Tim Hickey was down south on a rum deal and couldn’t fill in the blanks about how they’d ended up knocking over the wrong card game, and the Bartolo brothers were keeping their heads down and noses clean until they heard what was what, but here was Joe, supposedly the smart one, sniffing around Emma Gould like a starving dog following the scent of a cook fire.

Walk away, walk away, walk away.

Joe knew the voice was right. The voice was reason. And if not reason, then his guardian angel.

Problem was, he wasn’t interested in guardian angels today. He was interested in her.

The group of women walked off the waterfront and dispersed at Broadway Station. Most walked to a bench on the streetcar side, but Emma descended into the subway. Joe gave her a head start, then followed her through the turnstiles and down another set of steps and onto a northbound train. It was crowded on the train and hot but he never took his eyes off her, which was a good thing because she left the train one stop later, at South Station.

South Station was a transfer station where three subway lines, two el lines, a streetcar line, two bus lines, and the commuter rail all converged. Stepping out of the car and onto the platform turned him into a billiards ball on the break—he was bounced, pinned, and bounced again. He lost sight of her. He was not a tall man like his brothers, one of whom was tall and the other abnormally so. But thank God he wasn’t short, just medium. He stepped up on his toes and tried to press through the throng that way. It made the going slower, but he got a flash of her butterscotch hair bobbing by the transfer tunnel to the Atlantic Avenue Elevated.

He reached the platform just as the cars arrived. She stood two doors ahead of him in the same car when the train left the station and the city opened up in front of them, its blues and browns and brick red deepening in the onset of dusk. Windows in the office buildings had turned yellow. Streetlamps came on, block by block. The harbor bled out from the edges of the skyline. Emma leaned against a window and Joe watched it all unfurl behind her. She stared out blankly at the crowded car, her eyes alighting on nothing but wary just the same. They were so pale, her eyes, paler even than her skin. The pale of very cold gin. Her jaw and nose were both slightly pointed and dusted with freckles. Nothing about her invited approach. She seemed locked behind her own cold and beautiful face.

And what will the gentleman be having with his robbery this morning?

Just try not to leave marks.

That’s usually what liars say.

When they passed through Batterymarch Station and rattled over the North End, Joe looked down at the ghetto, teeming with Italians—Italian people, Italian dialects, Italian customs and food—and he couldn’t help but think of his oldest brother, Danny, the Irish cop who’d loved the Italian ghetto so much he’d lived and worked there. Danny was a big man, taller than just about anyone Joe had ever met. He’d been a hell of a boxer, a hell of a cop, and he knew little of fear. An organizer and vice president of the policemen’s union, he’d met the fate of every cop who’d chosen to go out on strike in September 1919—he’d lost his job without hope of reinstatement and been blackballed from all law enforcement positions on the Eastern Seaboard. It broke him. Or so the story went. He’d ended up in a Negro section of Tulsa, Oklahoma, that had burned to the ground in a riot five years ago. Since then, Joe’s family had heard only rumors about his whereabouts and those of his wife, Nora—Austin, Baltimore, Philadelphia.

Growing up, Joe had adored his brother. Then he’d come to hate him. Now, he mostly didn’t think about him. When he did, he had to admit, he missed his laugh.

Down the other end of the car, Emma Gould said Excuse me, excuse me as she worked her way toward the doors. Joe looked out the window and saw that they were approaching City Square in Charlestown.

Charlestown. No wonder she hadn’t gotten rattled with a gun pointed at her. In Charlestown, they brought .38s to the dinner table, used the barrels to stir their coffee.

He followed her to a two-story house at the end of Union Street. Just before she reached the house, she took a right down a pathway that ran along the side, and by the time Joe got to the alley behind the house, she was gone. He looked up and down the alley—nothing but similar two-story houses, most of them saltbox shacks with rotting window frames and tar patches in the roof. She could’ve gone into any of them, but she’d chosen the last walkway on the block. He assumed hers was the blue-gray one he was facing with steel doors over a wooden bulkhead.

Just past the house was a wooden gate. It was locked, so he grabbed the top of it, hoisted himself up, and took a look at another alley, narrower than the one he was in. Aside from a few trash cans, it was empty. He let himself back down and searched his pocket for one of the hairpins he rarely left home without.

Half a minute later he stood on the other side of the gate and waited.

It didn’t take long. This time of day—quitting time—it never did. Two pairs of footsteps came up the alley, two men talking about the latest plane that had gone down trying to cross the Atlantic, no sign of the pilot, an Englishman, or the wreckage. One second it was in the air, the next it was gone for good. One of the men knocked on the bulkhead, and after a few seconds, Joe heard him say, Blacksmith.

One of the bulkhead doors was pulled back with a whine and then a few moments later, it was dropped back in place and locked.

Joe waited five minutes, clocking it, and then he exited the second alley and knocked on the bulkhead.

A muffled voice said, What?

Blacksmith.

There was a ratcheting sound as someone threw the bolt back and Joe lifted the bulkhead door. He climbed into the small stairwell and let himself down it, lowering the bulkhead door as he went. At the bottom of the stairwell, he faced a second door. It opened as he was reaching for it. An old baldy guy with a cauliflower nose and blown blood vessels splayed across his cheekbones waved him inside, a grim scowl on his face.

It was an unfinished basement with a wood bar in the center of the dirt floor. The tables were wooden barrels, the chairs made of the cheapest pine.

At the bar, Joe sat down at the end closest to the door, where a woman with fat that hung off her arms like pregnant bellies served him a bucket of warm beer that tasted a little of soap and a little of sawdust, but not a lot like beer or a lot like alcohol. He looked for Emma Gould in the basement gloom, saw only dockworkers, a couple of sailors, and a few working girls. A piano sat against the brick wall under the stairs, unused, a few keys broken. This was not the kind of speak that went in for entertainment much beyond the bar fight that would open up between the sailors and the dockworkers once they realized they were short two working girls.

She came out the door behind the bar, tying a kerchief off behind her head. She’d traded her blouse and skirt for an off-white fisherman’s sweater and brown tweed trousers. She walked the bar, emptying ashtrays and wiping spills, and the woman who’d served Joe his drink removed her apron and went back through the door behind the bar.

When she reached Joe, her eyes flicked on his near-empty bucket. You want another?

Sure.

She glanced at his face and didn’t seem fond of the result. Who told you about the place?

Dinny Cooper.

Don’t know him, she said.

That makes two of us, Joe thought, wondering where the fuck he’d come up with such a stupid name. Dinny? Why didn’t he call the guy Lunch?

He’s from Everett.

She wiped the bar in front of him, still not moving to get his drink. Yeah?

Yeah. We worked the Chelsea side of the Mystic last week. Dredge work?

She shook her head.

Anyway, Dinny pointed across the river, told me about this place. Said you served good beer.

Now I know you’re lying.

Because someone said you serve good beer?

She stared at him the way she had in the payroll office, like she could see the intestines curled inside him, the pink of his lungs, the thoughts that journeyed among the folds of his brain.

"The beer’s not that bad, he said and raised his bucket. I had some once in this place this one time? I swear to you it—"

Butter doesn’t melt on your tongue, does it? she said.

Miss?

Does it?

He decided to try resigned indignation. I’m not lying, miss. But I can go. I can certainly go. He stood. What do I owe you for the first one?

Two dimes.

She held out her hand and he placed the coins in them and she placed them in the pocket of her man’s trousers. You won’t do it.

What? he said.

"Leave. You want me to be so impressed that you said you’d leave that I’ll decide you’re a Clear-Talk Charlie and ask you to stay."

Nope. He shrugged into his coat. I’m really going.

She leaned into the bar. Come here.

He cocked his head.

She crooked a finger at him. Come here.

He moved a couple of stools out of the way and leaned into the bar.

You see those fellas in the corner, sitting by the table made out of the apple barrel?

He didn’t need to turn his head. He’d seen them the moment he walked in—three of them. Dockworkers by the look of them, ship masts for shoulders, rocks for hands, eyes you didn’t want to catch.

I see ’em.

They’re my cousins. You see a family resemblance, don’t you?

No.

She shrugged. You know what they do for work?

Their lips were close enough that if they’d opened their mouths and unfurled their tongues, the tips would have met.

I have no idea.

They find guys like you who lie about guys named Dinny and they beat them to death. She inched her elbows forward and their faces grew even closer. Then they throw them in the river.

Joe’s scalp and the backs of his ears itched. Quite the occupation.

Beats robbing poker games, though, doesn’t it?

For a moment Joe forgot how to move his face.

Say something clever, Emma Gould said. Maybe about that sock you put in my mouth. I want to hear something slick and clever.

Joe said nothing.

And while you’re thinking of things, Emma Gould said, think of this—they’re watching us right now. If I tug this earlobe? You won’t make the stairs.

He looked at the earlobe she’d indicated with a flick of her pale eyes. The right one. It looked like a chickpea, but softer. He wondered what it would taste like first thing in the morning.

Joe glanced down at the bar. And if I pull this trigger?

She followed his gaze, saw the pistol he’d placed between them.

"You won’t reach your earlobe," he said.

Her eyes left the pistol and rose up his forearm in such a way he could feel the hairs parting. She sculled across the center of his chest and then up his throat and over his chin. When she found his eyes, hers were fuller and sharper, lit with something that had entered the world centuries before civilized things.

I get off at midnight, she said.

Chapter Two

The Lack in Her

Joe lived on the top floor of a boardinghouse in the West End, just a short walk from the riot of Scollay Square. The boardinghouse was owned and operated by the Tim Hickey Mob, which had long had a presence in the city but had flourished in the six years since the Eighteenth Amendment took effect.

The first floor was usually occupied by Paddys right off the boat with woolen brogues and bodies of gristle. One of Joe’s jobs was to meet them at the docks and lead them to Hickey-owned soup kitchens, give them brown bread and white chowder and gray potatoes. He brought them back to the boardinghouse where they were packed three to a room on firm, clean mattresses while their clothes were laundered in the basement by the older whores. After a week or so, once they’d gotten some strength back and freed their hair of nits and their mouths of poisoned teeth, they’d sign voter registration cards and pledge bottomless support to Hickey candidates in next year’s elections. Then they were set loose with the names and addresses of other immigrants from the same villages or counties back home who might be counted on to find them jobs straightaway.

On the second floor of the boardinghouse, accessible only by a separate entrance, was the casino. The third was the whore floor. Joe lived on the fourth, in a room at the end of the hall. There was a nice bathroom on the floor that he shared with whichever high rollers were in town at the moment and Penny Palumbo, the star whore of Tim Hickey’s stable. Penny was twenty-five but looked seventeen and her hair was the color bottled honey got when the sun moved through it. A man had jumped off a roof over Penny Palumbo; another had stepped off a boat; a third, instead of killing himself, killed another guy. Joe liked her well enough; she was nice and wonderful to look at. But if her face looked seventeen, he’d bet her brain looked ten. It was solely occupied, as far as Joe could tell, by three songs and some vague wishes about becoming a dressmaker.

Some mornings, depending on who got down to the casino first, one brought the other coffee. This morning, she brought it to him and they sat by the window in his room looking out at Scollay Square with its striped awnings and tall billboards as the first milk trucks puttered along Tremont Row. Penny told him that last night a fortune-teller had assured her she was destined to either die young or become a Trinitarian Pentecostal in Kansas. When Joe asked her if she was worried about dying, she said sure, but not half as much as moving to Kansas.

When she left, he heard her talking to someone in the hall, and then Tim Hickey was standing in his doorway. Tim wore a dark pinstripe vest, unbuttoned, matching trousers, and a white shirt with the collar unbuttoned and no tie. Tim was a trim man with a fine head of white hair and the sad, helpless eyes of a death row chaplain.

Mr. Hickey, sir.

Morning, Joe. He drank coffee from an old-fashioned glass that caught the morning light rising off the sills. That bank in Pittsfield?

Yeah? Joe said.

The guy you want to see comes in here Thursdays, but you’ll find him at the Upham’s Corner place most other nights. He’ll keep a homburg on the bar to the right of his drink. He’ll give you the lay of the building and the out-route too.

Thanks, Mr. Hickey.

Hickey acknowledged that with a tip of his glass. Another thing—’member that dealer we discussed last month?

Carl, Joe said, yeah.

He’s up to it again.

Carl Laubner, one of their blackjack dealers, had come from a joint that ran dirty games, and they couldn’t convince him to run a clean game here, not if any of the players in question looked less than 100 percent white. So if an Italian or a Greek sat down at the table, forget it. Carl magically pulled tens and aces for hole cards all night, or at least until the swarthier gents left the table.

Fire him, Hickey said. Soon as he comes in.

Yes, sir.

We don’t run that horseshit here. Agreed?

Absolutely, Mr. Hickey. Absolutely.

And fix the twelve slot, will you? It’s running loose. We might run a straight house, but we’re not a fucking charity, are we, Joe?

Joe wrote himself a note. No, sir, we are not.

Tim Hickey ran one of the few clean casinos in Boston, which made it one of the most popular casinos in town, particularly for the high-class play. Tim had taught Joe that rigged games fleeced a chump maybe two, three times at the most before he got wise and stopped playing. Tim didn’t want to fleece someone a couple of times; he wanted to drain them for the rest of their lives. Keep ’em playing, keep ’em drinking, he told Joe, and they will fork over all their green and thank you for relieving them of the weight.

The people we service? Tim said more than once. They visit the night. But we live in it. They rent what we own. That means when they come to play in our sandbox, we make a profit off every grain.

Tim Hickey was one of the smarter men Joe had ever known. At the start of Prohibition, when the mobs in the city were split down ethnic lines—Italians mixing only with Italians, Jews mixing only with Jews, Irish mixing only with Irish—Hickey mixed with everyone. He aligned himself with Giancarlo Calabrese, who ran the Pescatore Mob while old man Pescatore was in prison, and together they started dealing in Caribbean rum when everyone else was dealing in whiskey. By the time the Detroit and New York gangs had leveraged their power to turn everyone else into subcontractors in the whiskey trade, the Hickey and Pescatore mobs had cornered the market on sugar and molasses. The product came out of Cuba mostly, crossed the Florida Straits, got turned into rum on U.S. soil, and took midnight runs up the Eastern Seaboard

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